Small Satellite Missions

NASA Evaluates Deployed Advanced Composite Solar Sail System

Since deploying its sail last week, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft continues sending images and data, helping the team better understand how the boom technology demonstration performed. The primary objective of the demonstration is to conduct the deployment operation and use it to inform the use of large-scale sails for future missions. The mission team is continuing to analyze the incoming data and prepare for the next steps in the technology demonstration over the next couple of weeks.

Currently orbiting Earth, the spacecraft can be seen with its reflective sails deployed from the ground. As part of the planned deployment sequence, the spacecraft began flying without attitude control just before the deployment of the booms. As a result, it is slowly tumbling as expected. Once the mission team finishes characterizing the booms and sail, they will re-engage the spacecraft’s attitude control system, which will stabilize the spacecraft and stop the tumbling. Engineers will then analyze flight dynamics before initiating maneuvers that will raise and lower the spacecraft’s orbit.

Those interested in spotting the sail can view the spacecraft using a new feature in the NASA mobile app. Its visibility may be intermittent in the night sky, and it could appear at variable levels of brightness while tumbling. NASA invites the public to share their own photos of the spacecraft online with the hashtag, #SpotTheSail.

Image caption: The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System has four black-and-white wide-angle cameras, centrally located aboard the spacecraft. Near the bottom of the photo, the view from one camera shows the reflective sail quadrants supported by composite booms. At the top of the photo is the back surface of one of the spacecraft’s solar panels. The five sets of markings on the booms close to the spacecraft are reference markers to indicate full extension of the sail. The booms are mounted at right angles, and the solar panel is rectangular, but appear distorted because of the wide-angle camera field of view. Credit: NASA

NASA Composite Booms Deploy, Mission Sets Sail in Space

NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is now fully deployed in space after a successful test of its sail-hoisting boom system. Mission operators confirmed success at 1:33 p.m. EDT (10:33 a.m. PDT) on Thursday, Aug. 29, after receiving data from the spacecraft. Centrally located aboard the spacecraft are four cameras which captured a panoramic view of the reflective sail and supporting composite booms. High-resolution imagery from these cameras will be available on Wednesday, Sept. 4.

During the next few weeks, the team will test the maneuvering capabilities of the sail in space. Raising and lowering the orbit of the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft will provide valuable information that may help guide future concepts of operations and designs for solar sail-equipped science and exploration missions. 

The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft orbits Earth at approximately twice the altitude of the International Space Station. From above, the sail will appear as a square, with an area of approximately 860 square feet (80 square meters) – about half the size of a tennis court. Now, with the sail fully extended, the Solar Sail System may be visible to some keen skywatchers on Earth who look up at the right time. Stay tuned to NASA.gov and @NASAAmes on social media for updates on how to catch the spacecraft passing over your area.

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NASA Ames manages the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System project and designed and built the onboard camera diagnostic system. NASA Langley designed and built the deployable composite booms and solar sail system. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program office based at NASA Ames and led by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, funds and manages the mission. NASA STMD’s Game Changing Development program developed the deployable composite boom technology. Rocket Lab USA, Inc of Long Beach, California provided launch services, and NanoAvionics provided the spacecraft bus.  

NASA Updates Deployment Efforts for Solar Sail Demonstration

NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System has begun deployment operations. Upon an initial attempt to unfurl, the solar sail paused when an onboard power monitor detected higher than expected motor currents. Communications, power, and attitude control for the spacecraft all remain normal while mission managers work to understand and resolve the cause of the interruption by analyzing data from the spacecraft.

One of the primary objectives of this technology demonstration is to test the expanding boom system, which has never been deployed for a solar sail on a spacecraft of this size. The spacecraft’s booms, which are similar in function to a sailboat’s booms, are made of a new material that is stiffer and lighter than previous designs. This technology has the potential to lower the cost of deep space missions and increase access to space.

Mission operators have been able to download data from the spacecraft during brief, planned communications windows when it passes in range of mission control at Santa Clara University in California. The team is conducting analysis and assessing all spacecraft systems before resuming deployment operations.

NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program maintains a philosophy of risk tolerance in its pursuit to rapidly mature space technologies that meet the needs of NASA and the nation.

For ongoing mission updates, follow us on social media:

X: @NASAAmes, @NASA
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NASA Ames manages the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System project and designed and built the onboard camera diagnostic system. NASA Langley designed and built the deployable composite booms and solar sail system. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program office based at NASA Ames and led by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, funds and manages the mission. NASA STMD’s Game Changing Development program developed the deployable composite boom technology. Rocket Lab USA, Inc of Long Beach, California provided launch services, and NanoAvionics provided the spacecraft bus.

NASA, Universities to Study Earth’s Soil, Use New Technology in Orbit

Image shows Arizona State University student Marco Lalonde stows the DORA solar panels in preparation for flight — Arizona State University student Marco Lalonde stows the DORA solar panels in preparation for flight. Photo credit: Danny Jacobs

NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative soon will send two CubeSats to the International Space Station as cargo on the 21st Northrop Grumman commercial resupply mission.

CySat-1, designed and built by students from Iowa State University, measures Earth’s soil moisture content from low Earth orbit. The measurements will be taken with a software-defined radiometer, a system that uses software to process analog radio signals. Students will create computer programs to analyze those signals to determine levels of moisture in the soil present on the Earth. As Iowa State University’s first CubeSat, CySat-1 will be a technology demonstrator for future CubeSat missions.

Students at Arizona State University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California developed DORA (Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture), a new technology CubeSat.

In the past, small satellites required precision pointing and only achieved low data transmissions in gathering information. The technology will demonstrate new optical communications without precision pointing and use a solid-state photon detector to gather high data rates using wide-field optical receivers. To test the detector’s performance, DORA will measure the background light from reflected sunlight, moonlight, and city lights when deployed from the space station into low Earth orbit.

The two demonstrations, CySat-1 and DORA, are both 3U CubeSats, a class of small satellites. The cube-shaped spacecraft are sized in standardized units, or Us, typically up to 12U. One CubeSat unit is defined as a volume of about 10x10x10 cm in size and typically weighs less than 2 kilograms.

The satellites will be released from the International Space Station using the Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer. One of the space station’s arms grabs and points the deployer in the proper direction to release the CubeSats into orbit.

Launch of the Cygnus spacecraft is targeted at 11:28 a.m. EDT Saturday, Aug. 3, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

NASA’s Solar Sail System Readies Sail Deployment

Commissioning is nearly complete for NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, and mission operators are charting a course for their next milestone – hoisting the sails using new composite booms.

The sail will unfurl from the spacecraft’s 12-unit (12U) CubeSat body using composite booms made from new materials that are stiffer and lighter than previous designs. Once successful boom and sail deployment are achieved, the team hopes to prove the sail’s propulsion capabilities and maneuverability by raising and lowering the satellite’s orbit. Solar sails use the pressure of sunlight for propulsion, as photons bouncing off a reflective sail push a spacecraft. Like a sailboat turning to capture the wind, the spacecraft can adjust its orbit by angling the sail.

After launching in April aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from New Zealand, the mission completed a series of tests and preparations, including testing two-way communications and deploying solar panels – a battery-charging mechanism, not to be confused with the not-yet deployed solar sail.

The project team expects to deploy the sail in the next few weeks. Given its position in orbit, about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) above Earth, and the reflectivity of the large sail, about 860 square feet (80 square meters), mission managers say the Solar Sail System should be easily visible at times in the night sky once the sail is fully deployed.

For ongoing mission updates, follow us on social media:

X: @NASAAmes, @NASA
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NASA Ames manages the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System project and designed and built the onboard camera diagnostic system. NASA Langley designed and built the deployable composite booms and solar sail system. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program office based at NASA Ames and led by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), funds and manages the mission. NASA STMD’s Game Changing Development program developed the deployable composite boom technology. Rocket Lab USA, Inc of Long Beach, California provided launch services. AST&Defense LLC of College Park, Maryland, designed and built the spacecraft bus.

NASA’s Space Weather CubeSat Rides on Ariane 6 Rocket

CURIE (CubeSat Radio Interferometry Experiment) will launch as a rideshare payload on the inaugural flight of ESA’s (European Space Agency) Arianespace Ariane 6 rocket to provide observations of solar radio waves critical for greater understanding of space weather. Photo credit: ESA

NASA will provide the CURIE (CubeSat Radio Interferometry Experiment) as a rideshare payload on the ESA (European Space Agency) inaugural flight of the Arianespace Ariane 6 rocket to provide a glimpse into the primary drivers of space weather. Launch is targeted for July 9 from Europe’s Spaceport, the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, in French Guiana.

Designed by Dr. David Sundkvist and a team from the University of California, Berkeley, CURIE is a radio interferometer comprising two 3U CubeSats that will launch bolted together as one before separating into two later in orbit. The experiment’s two CubeSats will provide two separate vantage points to measure the same radio waves coming from the Sun and other sources in the sky.

The CubeSats will study radio burst emissions from solar eruptive events such as flares and coronal mass ejections in the inner heliosphere – the region between the Sun and Jupiter. The ejections drive space weather often contributing to dramatic aurora events, and disrupting orbiting satellites, power grids, and communications on Earth.

The mission is the first of its kind to measure radio waves in the 0.1-19 MHz frequency range from space. It serves as an experimental platform and pathfinder in the development of new space-based radio observation techniques. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate funds and manages the mission through the Heliophysics Flight Opportunities for Research and Technology activity.

Earth’s ionosphere absorbs the particular radio waves CURIE will study – a region of charged gases 30 to 400 miles above the planet’s surface. The satellites will need an orbit around 360 miles above Earth to reduce radio wave blockage.

“NASA and ESA share a collaborative and mutually beneficial working relationship and are in constant communication about potential spacecraft and launch opportunities between the two agencies,” said Norman Phelps, mission manager with NASA’s Launch Services Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “ESA notified NASA it could provide a slot on the Ariane 6 if there was a CubeSat compatible with the orbital parameters and launch window, and after a thorough search, CURIE was selected.”

NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) manifested CURIE on the Ariane 6 after the agency selected the small satellite during the 11th round of CSLI candidates in 2020.

Since its inception, NASA’s CSLI has launched more than 150 CubeSats on a myriad of rockets and worked with more than 200 institutions and organizations, providing a low-cost way to conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations in space.

Firefly Aerospace Reschedules CubeSat Launch After Scrub

Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket carrying eight CubeSats as part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative’s (CSLI) ELaNa (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites) 43 mission rolls out of the company’s Payload Processing Facility to Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on Sunday, June 30, 2024. Firefly Aerospace is one of three companies selected to fly small satellites to space under NASA’s Launch Services Program Venture-Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 (VCLS Demo 2) contract awarded in December 2020. — Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket carrying eight CubeSats as part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative’s (CSLI) ELaNa (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites) 43 mission stands vertical at Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on Monday, July 1, 2024. Photo credit: Firefly Aerospace

An issue with ground equipment caused a launch scrub at the last second for eight small satellite missions on a rideshare to space. NASA and Firefly Aerospace now are targeting 9:03 p.m. PDT, July 2 (12:03 a.m. EDT, July 3) for the launch of the CubeSats as part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative’s (CSLI) ELaNa (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites) 43.

Firefly Aerospace’s “Noise of Summer” will launch on an Alpha rocket from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Launch Update for NASA’s ELaNa 43 CubeSats

NASA and Firefly Aerospace are now targeting 9:03 p.m. PDT, July 1 (12:03 a.m. EDT, July 2) for the launch of eight CubeSats as part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative’s (CSLI) ELaNa (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites) 43.

Firefly Aerospace’s “Noise of Summer” will launch on an Alpha rocket from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

NASA’s ELaNa 43 CubeSats to Launch on Firefly’s Alpha Rocket

Image of Technicians from the University of Maine prepare CubeSat MESAT-1 for integration at Firefly’s Payload Processing Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California on Monday, April 22, 2024. MESAT-1, along with seven other payloads, will be integrated into a Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket for NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) 43 mission as part of the agency’s CubeSat Launch Initiative and Firefly’s Venture-Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 contract. — Technicians from the University of Maine prepare CubeSat MESAT-1 for integration at Firefly’s Payload Processing Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California on Monday, April 22, 2024. MESAT-1, along with seven other payloads, will be integrated into a Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket for NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) 43 mission as part of the agency’s CubeSat Launch Initiative and Firefly’s Venture-Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 contract. Photo credit: NASA

NASA and Firefly Aerospace are targeting no earlier than Wednesday, June 26, for the launch of eight CubeSats as part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative’s (CSLI) ELaNa (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites) 43. The 30-minute launch window will open at 9 p.m. PDT on June 26 (12 a.m. EDT on June 27).

Firefly Aerospace’s “Noise of Summer” will launch on an Alpha rocket from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The CubeSats flying on ELaNa 43 are:

- - CatSat – University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
  - KUbe-Sat-1 – University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
  - MESAT1 – University of Maine, Orono, Maine
  - R5-S4 – NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
  - R5-S2-2.0 – NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
  - SOC-i – University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
  - TechEdSat-11 – NASA Ames Research Center
  - Serenity – Teachers in Space

Firefly Aerospace is one of three companies selected under NASA’s Launch Services Program Venture-Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 (VCLS Demo 2) contract awarded in December 2020. The venture-class contracts illustrate how NASA offers opportunities for new launch providers to grow the commercial industry at all levels, which will result in cost-effective competition for NASA missions in the future.

Follow NASA’s Small Satellite blog for launch updates.

Liftoff for PREFIRE and Ice!

A Rocket Lab Electron rocket lifts off from the pad amid an overcast sky. — Rocket Lab’s “PREFIRE and Ice” launches carrying NASA’s second PREFIRE CubeSat from New Zealand on Wednesday, June 5, 2024. Credit: Rocket Lab Broadcast

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 1 at Māhia, New Zealand at 3:15 p.m. NZST Wednesday, June 5 (11:15 p.m. EDT Tuesday, June 4), on the second of two launches of NASA’s PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission.

The PREFIRE mission will help close a gap in our understanding of how much of Earth’s heat is lost to space from the Arctic and Antarctica. Each PREFIRE satellite is equipped with an instrument called a thermal infrared spectrometer. The instrument contains specially shaped mirrors and detectors for splitting and measuring infrared light. Analysis of PREFIRE measurements will inform climate and ice models, providing better projections of how a warming world will affect sea ice loss, ice sheet melt, and sea level rise.

The mission consists of two 6U CubeSats with a baseline mission length of 10 months and is jointly developed by NASA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and provided the instruments. Blue Canyon Technologies built the CubeSats, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will process the data collected by the instruments. The science team includes members from JPL and the Universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Colorado.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, selected Rocket Lab to provide the launch service as part of the agency’s VADR (Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) launch services contract.

This concludes our coverage of the “PREFIRE and Ice” launch. The team is now working to establish communications with this PREFIRE CubeSat and will provide confirmation when signal is acquired. For updates, follow NASA’s small satellite missions blog or visit: https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/projects/prefire/.